Specially trained diabetic-sniffing animal to help 3-year-old

SHAUN STANLEY/Durango Herald
Emily Archuleta is trying to raise money to purchase a dog that will alert her to changes in her daughter’s blood sugar levels. Aubreana, 3, has diabetes.

SHAUN STANLEY/Durango Herald
Emily Archuleta is trying to raise money to purchase a dog that will alert her to changes in her daughter’s blood sugar levels. Aubreana, 3, has diabetes.

Emily Archuleta got a crash course in diabetes last October when daughter Aubreana, 3, was airlifted to Children’s Hospital in Denver because of extremely high blood sugar.

As soon as Aubreana was stabilized, Archuleta made a visit to the Barbara Davis Juvenile Diabetic Center. “I learned to check her blood glucose, give her shots of insulin and to recognize symptoms – something I had been oblivious to.”

Now, Archuleta has Aubreana on a waiting list for a service dog that can alert caregivers to potentially dangerous fluctuations in her blood sugar level before they happen.

The dog should relieve Archuleta of rousing herself every two hours during the night to check on Aubreana.

When a person with diabetes suffers an extreme rise or drop in blood sugar, the end product of a chemical process in the body is urea, which is released in urine, sweat and breath.

The scent, which is universal, is beyond human range. But the sensitive olfactory sense of a diabetes-alert dog can detect it and alert a caregiver up to a half-hour before the onset of a crisis.

Archuleta, a single mother with two other children, ages 11 and 5, has put down $1,000 as earnest money with Virginia-based Guardian Angel Service Dogs to get Aubreana on a waiting list.

When the dog is delivered, Archuleta will have two years to raise the rest of the $19,000 cost of the dog.

Other companies

Several organizations in the country train diabetes-alert dogs. Training methods, business practices and the cost of dogs vary.

No one from Guardian Angel Service Dogs in Orange, Va., the company that is providing Aubreana’s dog, returned a request for information.

A person who answered the phone at Alert Service Dogs Inc., a company based in Indiana that also has diabetes dogs, cut an interview short.

Lily Grace at the National Institute for Diabetic Alert Dogs, another diabetes dog company, in Cottonwood, Calif., has no waiting list.

“As soon as I get a request, I get a trainer,” Grace said. “It takes four months to train a dog. The trainer delivers the dog and spends two days with the patient or the family for orientation.”

Some diabetes dogs are trained to rouse the caregiver. Grace trains dogs to paw the person it’s charged to watch over. Grace said she also donates 10 percent of her dogs each year to people in need of a dog, but who can’t afford one.

Grace asks for 20 percent down and the remainder of $15,000 upon delivery.

Susan Millhollon is the manager of Dogs4Diabetics in Concord, Calif.

Dogs4Diabetics, a nonprofit organization that operates through volunteers, doesn’t charge for a dog. The only charge is an administrative fee of less than $200. But the organization doesn’t take on anyone younger than 12 and it only serves patients in California.

Dogs4Diabetics was founded by Mark Rufenacht, a Type 1 diabetic who was instrumental in developing diabetes scent detection, Millhollin said.

The organization is funded through foundations, private donations and grants.

Aubreana’s dog

Aubreana is scheduled to get a 6-month-old Labrador retriever that has been evaluated for temperament and trained to recognize scents, Archuleta said.

The trainer will deliver the dog and spend two weeks in Durango introducing the dog and patient and taking them to markets and other places where dogs usually aren’t allowed.

The trainer will return every three months until the dog is 2 years old to fine-tune the relationship, Archuleta said.

Twenty-six million Americans are believed to have diabetes – 19 million of them diagnosed cases.

SHAUN STANLEY/Durango Herald
Aubreana Gonzales, 3, was rushed to Children’s Hospital in Denver last year when her blood sugar reached a critical level. Her mother, Emily Archuleta, constantly checks the level.

SHAUN STANLEY/Durango Herald
Aubreana Gonzales, 3, was rushed to Children’s Hospital in Denver last year when her blood sugar reached a critical level. Her mother, Emily Archuleta, constantly checks the level.

To contribute

Emily Archuleta and friends are holding fundraisers with a goal of $19,000 for a diabetes-alert dog for Archuleta’s daughter, Aubreana, age 3.They have sponsored bake sales and garage sales, solicited donations from Durango merchants and held silent auctions at a softball tournament. They also have a poker run planned.A fund has been established for Aubreana at First National Bank of Durango. Donations may be sent to account FBO ADAD. The bank address is 259 W. Ninth St., Durango, CO 81301.